How is it that one judges a talent?
A writer staggers in and floors many
Flooding tales of life not well lived
Oh they pour in, drop by wave by bucket
Ah the talent! Ah pay it homage, All!
Nay, say I, but here is how one judges
Let them write of nothing, line by line
In solitary creation dream up their plot
Weaving each thread from idle fancy spun
Then when they have woven the tapestry
Hold it up to the light and let truth in
Is it beautiful? Does it hold interest?
What? With never having seen the places?
Never having danced that dance, one step?
Or let them find a broken thread on shelf
Dusty and ill used with age and translate
Let them jewel it, refine it shape it new
Something from a bygone age made freshly
Ah but that is talent! Pay it homage, All!
Judging Talent
Just a thought …
I was reading a book wherein on the back it said that the author was a writer of staggering talent.
Now, she is talented, I grant you; and I begrudge her not her accolades. But the truth is that if it was a fictional story, made up whole cloth, even then it would not be staggering.. but it would be closer.
I mean, the story is staggering.. but it is based on the truth of her life and that is what is staggering.
Which gave me pause, knowing that .. for I would hardly say she is more talented than Douglas Adams or Stephen King or Georgette Heyer ever were, or even as good in my personal opinion, and she’d never give Steinbeck or Shakespeare a run for their money… it is simply that the story is powerful, then, apparently, that she herself has been acclaimed as staggering.
The tale of Ghandi is staggering, and he told some parts of it, but it hardly made him a writer, journalist, film producer, etc. did it? And if he had done those things on his own? Well, the story would still have been staggering, but it still would not have made him anything but what he was.
So that is what I was wondering about, talent not Ghandi, and why. It is not that she could not be a staggering writer. It is that to determine it you’d have to see something she wove with words all on her own, not just in the retelling of little events that happened, in the rehashing of old letters. That’s all.
Add your comment
You need to login or signup to add your comment to this work.